July 20 deadline nears as over 4,000 RTE seats remain vacant in Indore

More than 4,000 seats under the Right to Education (RTE) quota remain vacant in private schools across Indore, with parents who received allotments in Round 3 required to complete admission formalities before the July 20 deadline.

Round 3 was the final online allotment round for the 2026–27 academic session. Only previously verified applicants who remained unallotted or had not reported in earlier rounds were eligible for the computerised lottery held on July 10. No fresh applications were accepted.

Despite applications exceeding the available seats, nearly 44 per cent of the 9,029 RTE seats for the academic session are yet to be filled. Education officials said the vacancies are due to application rejections during verification and parents choosing not to accept allotted schools.

A total of 12,936 applications were received for the admission process. During verification, 2,717 applications were rejected due to issues including incorrect rental agreements, unlinked Samagra IDs and outdated income records.

Officials said the primary reason for unfilled seats was that many parents preferred a limited number of established private schools and did not complete admissions when their children were allotted places in smaller schools.

In the first round, 4,615 children secured admissions, while 1,204 students received allotments through the second-round online lottery. However, only 425 families completed the admission process in the second round.

Indore District Project Coordinator Sanjay Kumar Mishra said parents were mainly interested in a few private schools under the RTE scheme. He said many families did not proceed with admissions after their children were allotted seats in smaller neighbourhood schools.

"When children are allotted to smaller neighbourhood schools, many parents simply do not complete the admission process. A good government school followed by admission to an Excellence School may be a better option," Mishra said.

He urged parents who received allotments in Round 3 to report to their assigned schools before July 20 instead of waiting for possible offline options.

If seats remain vacant after July 20, the State Education Centre will close the online admission process for the academic year.

Mishra said the remaining vacancies would be filled through a centralised spot admission process at the District Education Officer's office in Indore later in July. The process will not involve direct admissions at individual schools. Verified applicants will participate in centralised counselling and choose from the available seats, with all admissions recorded and verified digitally through the official RTE MP app.